


and every part stands still

by Dragonflies_and_Katydids



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Bondage, Established Relationship, M/M, Past Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Role Reversal, Switching
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-18
Updated: 2015-10-18
Packaged: 2018-04-27 00:11:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,986
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5026093
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dragonflies_and_Katydids/pseuds/Dragonflies_and_Katydids
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Dorian," Bull says softly, and Dorian looks at him, startled out of his thoughts. "I trust you."</p>
<p>"You shouldn't!" Dorian snaps. "<em>I</em> don't trust me."</p>
<p>Bull smiles faintly, one corner of his mouth turning up. "I know."</p>
            </blockquote>





	and every part stands still

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Mrs_D_and_K](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mrs_D_and_K/gifts).



> For my wife, because when I read her [the rules for this contest](http://greyallison.tumblr.com/contest-writers), she perked up and said, "You could do a King of Misrule kind of thing, where the person who's normally dominant isn't!" So I did. (Also for her because, when she came home yesterday afternoon to find that I had been writing instead of doing laundry, she didn't roll her eyes, not even a little bit. That's love right there.)
> 
> I did actually set out to write something I could submit to that contest (I, errrr, might have gotten sucked into the black hole that is [Tumblr](http://dragonflies-and-katydids.tumblr.com/)), but alas, this story is both too long and not really what people think of when they hear the prompt "celebration." I might (maybe) be able to shorten it to make the word count, but there's not much I can do about the tone. Or at least, nothing I'm _willing_ to do about the tone. I may try again with another story, if inspiration strikes before the contest closes, but in the meantime, hope y'all enjoy this one.
> 
> Oh, and I've wanted to write hair-bondage for a while now, but I haven't really been able to fit it in anywhere. Too many characters with short hair, unfortunately. This may be the closest I ever get, unless I branch out to other fandoms.

He looks at Bull, then down at the chains Bull pressed into his hands the instant he walked through the door, and Dorian admits to himself that it isn't excitement turning every breath into a struggle; not excitement, not anticipation, not arousal.

It's fear.

He isn't used to being afraid, and he certainly isn't used to being afraid of Bull. Even at the beginning, when they eyed each other sideways while they waited for the betrayal that seemed a foregone conclusion, Dorian was more wary than anything. The only thing he was risking was his life, after all, and he'd been risking that for years before he joined the Inquisition. If anyone had asked, he would have laughed at the suggestion that he should be afraid, no matter how imposing Bull looked in his armor.

The first time he let Bull tie him might have been a good time to learn fear, but he hadn't felt it then, either. Not real fear, at any rate: it was more the exhilaration he felt before a battle, the excitement that made everything sharp, that distorted time into strange blinks and jerks. And after that, he'd been as eager as Bull, desperate for the peace that only came when the choices were no longer his to make. Fear has never been part of it, not before tonight. Not before now.

He explores the links with gentle fingers, knowing that it isn't Bull he's afraid of. When Dorian is the one bound, then all the decisions are Bull's to make. Sometimes Dorian submits quietly, and sometimes Bull forces him to give way, but in either case, he knows when the door shuts behind him that he can give up responsibility, that his tenuous strength will not be tested. He can't fall, here. Bull won't let him.

He needs that more than ever tonight, with the Satinalia celebration wild and raucous outside. The wine is flowing--oh, is it flowing--and Dorian can almost taste it, can feel the sharpness of it along the sides of his tongue and the gentle burn in his throat, and surely one sip wouldn't-

No. He's done with that, has been done with it for months. It's not as if the wine ever fixed anything, beyond providing a little temporary distance from the rest of the world. Distance, and relief from the shame that is his homeland's most enduring gift: shame over all the things he shouldn't want, but does.

"Dorian," Bull says softly, and Dorian looks at him, startled out of his thoughts. "I trust you."

"You shouldn't!" Dorian snaps. " _I_ don't trust me."

Bull smiles faintly, one corner of his mouth turning up. "I know."

There's a thump on the door, hard enough to rattle it against the bar, but it sounds less like a knock and more like a clumsy drunk in search of support, a need Dorian understands all too well.

A slurred apology comes faintly through the wood before equally slurred voices move away, leaving Bull's door in peace once again. Last Satinalia, Dorian would have been out there with them, sneering at those amateurs who staggered about after a single bottle of wine, smug in his own superior ability to drink until his vision blurred without once missing a step. As if that was something to be proud of.

Now he hides in Bull's room, afraid of what he might do if he leaves. The wine is a temptation on the best days, and Satinalia is a holiday made for succumbing to temptation. He made it through the feast and several rounds of dancing without faltering, laughing at Sera's pranks and trading barbs with Vivienne and rolling his eyes at Bull's joke about Dorian as the King of Misrule. He even managed to stop Cole from saying anything too embarrassing to any prospective Inquisition allies.

But now Bull's joke has become this: Bull on his knees, hands clasped behind his back while Dorian studies a pair of manacles with bracelets so wide he can pass his closed fist through them. Rope is all well and good, but it provides only the illusion of control, not the reality, not when Bull can snap any rope that's thin enough to knot easily. This isn't the game they've sometimes played in the past, both of them fully aware that Bull could free himself whenever he wanted. This is real, Bull held as securely as he normally binds Dorian.

"I don't think this is a good idea," Dorian says at last. He's held the chain long enough that the iron is warm against his palm.

"Please?" Bull asks, and the wrongness of that tightens Dorian's hands into fists.

Bull has never asked him for anything: he always seems to know what Dorian wants, to be able to provide it and take his own pleasure from Dorian's. He didn't even ask Dorian to give up the wine, not by so much as a disapproving twitch of an eyebrow, no matter how much Dorian drank. Towards the end, it became almost a challenge, to see how much he would have to drink to provoke Bull into commenting.

Until the night Bull said casually, "You do know I'm not leaving? You're stuck with me, now." He didn't look up from the axe he was sharpening, but Dorian felt the words as if Bull had lodged that axe in his chest.

That night, he drank until even he couldn't walk, every mouthful impossibly bitter, and let Bull carry him to bed around dawn. In the afternoon when he woke and went down to the hall to eat, he picked up the wine by habit, only to stare at it for a long time before setting it back down on the table, very gently.

He hasn't drunk anything but water in the months since.

And Bull has said nothing.

Dorian rolls his shoulders and steps forward, the chains clinking gently as he lays them down on the bed. Bull opens his mouth to say something, but Dorian talks over him. "You'll destroy your knees like that."

"My knees are fine," Bull says, amused and exasperated.

Dorian expresses his opinion of that with a snort, then grabs the pillows off the bed and throws them on the ground in front of Bull, like they're gauntlets and he's issuing a challenge. Bull only smiles and shifts to kneel on the pillows without taking his hands from behind his back.

The chains are cold when Dorian picks them up, and he runs them through his hands until he finds the places warmed by his skin earlier. He can smell the metal so strongly it's almost a taste.

Ankles first, the manacles barely large enough to fit, then wrists, then horns, and finally the locks that bind the whole thing together, holding Bull in his current pose: sitting back on his heels, shoulders back, head up. He can't bend forward or backward even if he tries, not once Dorian has locked the chains to the bolts in the floor.

Dorian steps back and surveys his work, looking for anything out of place, struggling for the control he knows he needs but can't seem to find. He's always been weak, too easily tempted, and certainly not controlled the way Bull is controlled. He's going to fall, and he's going to take Bull down with him, and whatever strange and fragile thing they've built together will shatter beyond repair.

_I can't,_ he thinks, hating himself. This is the only thing Bull has ever asked him for, and he can't do it.

He shifts his weight, about to step forward to undo all the chains he's just finished so carefully arranging, when he meets Bull's gaze almost by accident. There's no disappointment or annoyance there, though Bull has to be able to read his intent in his face and body. Instead, Bull is calm, as perfectly in control as Dorian wishes he could be. Calm and...something else.

It takes Dorian a second to identify that something else, and when he does, he feels it in his chest: warmth like the wine used to give him, that first rush before it blunted everything.

_I trust you,_ Bull said, and he doesn't repeat the words aloud, but Dorian hears them anyway.

He takes a deep breath in through his nose, and as it trickles slowly back out, he lets go of everything the way he does when he's the one on his knees. Nothing matters except the two of them, not now.

Two more breaths like that, and he can feel it starting, that ripple of energy through his body like he's reached into the Fade but hasn't yet fashioned the magic into a spell. Anything and everything is possible, and for the first time since he walked into Bull's room tonight, the thought doesn't frighten him.

He undresses slowly, standing where Bull can see him, taking his time with every buckle and strap. The air is cold--the air is _always_ cold in Skyhold--but his skin is flushed, excitement building with every breath, so that by the time he's naked, he's actually warmer than he was when he started.

Thoughts of warmth give him an idea, and this time, he really does reach into the Fade, channeling it into a tiny bit of magic as he steps between Bull's knees and cups his face in both hands. Even with Bull sitting on his heels, Dorian hardly has to bend at all to bring their mouths together, but rather than kiss him, he stops with his lips barely touching Bull's and releases the magic to exhale a long stream of smoke.

Bull's eye widens, the pupil swallowing the iris until Dorian can see himself reflected there. He smiles, inhales, and then blows out more smoke, even though it makes his lungs burn and his tongue feel like he tried to eat a live coal. It's a trick to entertain children, really, and one that will probably leave him unable to taste anything for the next week if the pain in his mouth is anything to go by, but it's more than worth it to feel Bull's lips part, to hear him suck in a ragged breath, breathing in the smoke Dorian is breathing out.

Dorian leans down that last little bit, changing a light brush of lips into a real kiss. It tastes like smoke, and the heat has left his lips so sensitive that it's almost painful, but he presses closer anyway, his tongue sliding over Bull's. It's odd without taste, though not unpleasant, everything reduced to pressure and texture: the sharp edges of teeth, the rough glide of tongues, the slickness of the inside of Bull's lip.

With their mouths still together, Dorian breathes out more smoke. Just a little, not enough to make either of them cough, only enough to make Bull groan softly into the kiss, a groan that gets louder when Dorian sucks on his lower lip, worrying it between his teeth.

His hands drift from Bull's cheeks to his horns, gripping them over the metal bands connected to the chain holding him in place. Metal and horn have both been warmed by their proximity to Bull's body, and Dorian wraps his fingers as far around them as he can, his thumb coming to rest against the first link of the chain on each side.

He leans his weight on his hands, forcing Bull's head back to the true limit of his body, the muscles in Bull's neck straining involuntarily against the pressure. The chains clink as they go a little slack, the sound surprisingly clear despite the celebration going on outside. Dorian smiles and kisses Bull harder, not so much ignoring the pain in his mouth as riding the crest of it, feeling it spark heat in his groin and his throat and his fingers.

Bull swallows, fighting for it against the angle of his head, and Dorian loosens his grip, letting him relax as much as the chains will allow while Dorian runs firm hands up to the points of his horns. His horns don't register touch the way his skin might, but he said once that the scrape of Dorian's rings and fingernails echoed down through his bones. Dorian had watched his face while he said it, and made a point of saving the information for later.

 He works Bull's horns like he might work his cock, stroking up and down with a rough grip that he would never use on himself but that Bull has always liked. It's clear he's enjoying it now, by the way his mouth goes quiet against Dorian's, accepting the kiss without actively returning it, all his attention on Dorian's hands.

Biting down hard on Bull's lower lip, Dorian blows out another thin trail of smoke, and Bull jerks against the chains for the first time. It doesn't accomplish anything, and Dorian feels the same way he does when he's the one who's tied, when he's tested whatever bindings Bull has used and found he can't shift any of them. Like everything that happens now is inevitable, rushing toward only one possible conclusion, whatever path it might take to get there.

There's just enough room on the pillows for Dorian to kneel between Bull's thighs, his hands sliding down Bull's horns to his neck. Under his palms, Bull's pulse beats fast, and Dorian can feel his throat working. He doesn't tighten his hands, only leaves them there for a moment as a reminder that he _could_ before he slides one around to the back of Bull's neck and lets the other continue downward.

Bull's cock is hard, thick enough that Dorian's finger and thumb only meet if he squeezes, and Dorian shivers as he remembers the feel of it pressing into him. He's tempted to move them to the bed, to tie Bull down on his back so Dorian can ride him until they're both wrecked, but he'd have to let go of Bull's cock to do it, and the feel of warm skin sliding over hardness is too good to pass up.

He brings his hand back up to his mouth, briefly, licking the palm and fingers before dropping them back to Bull's cock. Harder strokes now, his hand moving faster as he listens to the way Bull's breathing changes. They're chest-to-chest, Dorian up off his heels to get his head high enough to kiss the hollow of Bull's throat, Bull's muscles winding tighter as Dorian rubs his thumb across the head of his cock.

Just before Bull hits the edge, Dorian takes his hand away, leaning back so there's nothing for Bull to rub his cock against. His eye is closed, his face screwed up in a grimace, and he growls out Dorian's name in a voice that's half angry and half pleading.

Dorian puts his hand on his own cock and asks innocently, "Was there something you wanted?"

Bull growls again, wordlessly this time. Smiling now, Dorian ignores it, leaning in carefully so he can suck on the side of Bull's neck without letting their bodies touch. As he strokes himself, his knuckles brush Bull's cock occasionally, but the contact is too light to do anything other than make Bull lean into the chains. The bolts in the floor don't even creak as his full weight settles against them.

Feeling his muscles flex and strain without success is making Dorian light-headed, so much so that he almost forgets himself, his hand on his cock moving faster and faster, his breath matching the pace. Only in the last moment before it's too late does he remember what he'd planned. It's not easy to stop, not when he's so close, but he forces himself to open his hand, to bring it back to his mouth and lick it, to grip Bull's cock instead of his own.

He teases for a long time, taking them both to the edge again and again, until they're both covered in sweat and Dorian's thighs are burning. Bull is sucking in air between clenched teeth, his body shaking, soft groans leaking out on each breath. Every sound is like a caress to Dorian, his earlier fears burned away by the heat between them. It isn't wine he craves now, and he's no longer afraid of falling.

When they're teetering on the brink of too much, he grips Bull's cock in both hands, one tight around the base while the other strokes hard and fast. Stretching up to put his mouth against one pointed ear, he whispers, "Now," and bites the skin under Bull's jaw. Already at the limit of what little movement the chains allow, Bull can barely thrust as he spills in Dorian's hands, the chains rattling as he jerks against them, his cock pulsing between Dorian's fingers.

Dorian keeps his hands moving until Bull slumps back, and he waits for Bull's eye to open before he wraps his hands around his own cock one last time, his fingers still slick from Bull's seed. It's obvious the moment Bull realizes what, exactly, he's using to stroke himself: his eye widens and his body twitches weakly, as if Dorian had jolted him with lightning.

If he has any other reaction, Dorian doesn't see it as he buries his face in the curve of Bull's neck, muffling his own gasps and moans in skin that tastes of salt and leather. There's a moment when he thinks he's pushed his body too far, taken himself right up to the edge too often to actually go over it, and he concentrates on Bull's body against his. Heavy muscle over heavier bones, solid and steady, holding him up while a rough voice whispers to him in Qunlat, and his hands move frantically over his cock.

Then he's falling, and Bull is there to catch him, the way he always is.

**Author's Note:**

> how lucky lovers are(whose selves abide  
> under whatever shall discovered be)  
> whose ignorant each breathing dares to hide  
> more than most fabulous wisdom fears to see
> 
> (who laugh and cry)who dream,create and kill  
> while the whole moves;and every part stands still:
> 
> e. e. cummings


End file.
